Do you think people have the right to end their life (and have a “good” death)?

Do you believe in euthanasia (when someone other than the patient ends the patient’s life as painlessly as possible?

How do you feel about passive euthanasia (when a person does not try to resuscitate the patient)?

Or, how do you feel about active euthanasia? —It was determined that my sister’s body (Cindy James) had a massive dose of morphine (ten times the amount needed to kill her, although it couldn’t be determined if she swallowed morphine pills or was injected with morphine). Could that be an example of euthanasia? (Say someone injected Cindy with the morphine so she would slip away quickly and painlessly—an act out of mercy.)

Could Cindy have had those massive doses of Flurazepam AND morphine because her death was both a suicide (she swallowed enough Flurazepam to kill herself—not a criminal act in Canada) and active euthanasia (was injected with morphine—a mercy act, or is that still murder or manslaughter? I guess it would depend on the motives of the person assisting—would they assist because they had something to gain, like money, or would they assist purely out of compassion—and really, how would you tell the difference if it was unspoken?).

Or if she took both Flurazepam and morphine tablets, is that simply committing suicide in a most unusual way because she was mentally ill and perhaps dissociating? But then, how come police found no trace from tablets anywhere near Cindy’s body (none in the paper cup suspended in the nearby trees; none in the nearby container having an old weather-worn label—police said that container was irrelevant to her death; none in the pockets of the coat she was found partially laying on…). –How did she get the drugs to the site without leaving a trace? I find it impossible to believe Cindy would have taken the drugs elsewhere and then walked to the site—with that amount of drugs in her body she could hardly have had enough time to walk to the site AND tie herself up!

Maybe someone, having the evidence, walked away from the scene.

Is this a case of suicide plus active euthanasia… or of murder… or a strange suicide…or of something else?

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James